Cuisine, culture showcased during Montreal Highlights festivities

Nation's Restaurant News, March 15, 2004 by Elissa Elan

MONTREAL -- Nearly 500,000 people experienced this city's cultural splendor during the Fifth Annual Hydro Quebec Montreal Highlights festival, held Feb. 19-29 here.

The event, sponsored by the Montreal Tourism Board, was designed to showcase the cuisine, culture and performing arts of the French province Quebec.

In recent years the city's tourism industry has been hard hit by the fallout from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, the soft international economy and last year's outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

"The festival was mandated to get the city going during tourism's downtime, which usually is in winter," said Sophie Desbiens, the tourism board's spokeswoman. "Everyone goes out of the city for skiing, and we wanted to bring people back here. [Montreal] doesn't stop being what it's always been--known for its restaurants, creativity and city life."

More than 50 local restaurants participated in this year's event, presenting special prix-fixe, weeklong menus that featured the products of specific regions in Quebec and the cooking styles of those areas as well as certain regions of France, where most of the cooking styles originated.

Two of the city's renowned restaurants, L'Armoricain and Le Castillon, both located in downtown Montreal, created menus showcasing the flavors of Brittany, France, and Abitibi, Quebec, respectively.

At L'Armoricain, executive chef Stephane Mougenot presented such delicacies as seared deer tenderloin with red cabbage in black currant liqueur, carrot mousse, potato gratin and artichokes stuffed with bacon and cauliflower.

Serge Caplette, executive chef of Le Castillon at the Hilton Bonaventure hotel, prepared a menu featuring rack of piglet flavored with honey and fresh rosemary, angler fish with baby spinach and tomato salsa with coriander and lime, and sheep's milk ice cream with black currant coulis.

In addition, this year's festival featured the culinary creations of U.S. chefs Michael Schlow of Radius and David Daniels of The Federalist, both located in Boston.

"It's good for America's chefs to be here," Desbiens said. "They get acquainted with our products and maybe use them, too. One year Charlie Trotter came here and afterward he started using Canadian venison. It presents a creative challenge."

Montreal, according to officials of the tourism board, has approximately 4,000 to 5,000 restaurants currently in operation. The city, they added, is famous for two culinary standouts: its bagels, which are made with honey water and baked in wood-burning ovens, and smoked meat, which is similar to such U.S. deli products as pastrami and corned beef.

Local restaurateurs and residents tend to purchase food from two public markets in the city, Atwater and Gean-Talon, which operate indoors during the winter and outdoors in spring and summer. Both operations are set up like warehouses, open seven days a week, and feature all-fresh products from Quebec, including meats, foie gras, cheese, breads and pastries, fish, poultry and produce.

"It's the old European way of doing markets," said Ronald Poire, a tourism board representative.

Above: Customers sometimes wait in front of Schwartz's restaurant for more than two hours to sample the smoked meat.

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LEFT: Atwater, one of the public markets where many Montrealers, including restaurateurs, purchase food

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Below: La Boulangerie, a bakery-cafe in the Atwater market, sells its breads, rolls and pastries to approximately 52 restaurants in the city.

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Above: Some 500,000 people attended this year's festival, which showcased Quebec's culture, performing arts and cuisine.

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Left: St. Viateur Bagel Shop, the most famous bagel maker in Montreal, has been selling bagels for the last 40 years.

Inset: manager Saul Restrepo

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Below: At L'Armoricain, executive chef Stephane Mougenot prepared seared deer tenderloin with red cabbage in black currant liqueur, carrot mousse, potato gratin and artichokes with bacon and cauliflower.

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Above: Grocers sell fresh tomatoes and citrus fruits at the Gean-Talon indoor-outdoor market.

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